Mark Cuban says Trump has turned the GOP into his family business
Mark Cuban and Donald Trump
Mark Cuban said former President Donald Trump has made the Republican Party his “family business.”
In an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Pod” on Thursday, Cuban discussed the GOP presidential candidate with billionaire hedge fund manager David Tepper and SEC chief Gary Gensler.
“All we’ve seen Donald Trump do is hire his relatives,” Cuban told Tepper and Gensler. “Right? RNC? Here comes the daughter-in-law. You know who’s going to speak for him? His two sons.”
“Hey, we’ve got a new silver coin! Here come the sons!” he said.
Cuban added: “The family business is now the Republican Party.”
The former president has five children — Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump, and Barron Trump.
When he was president, Trump was known to lean on Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner. The couple were key figures in Trump’s White House inner circle.
This year, Trump handpicked his daughter-in-law Lara Trump — who is married to his third child, Eric — to cochair the Republican National Committee. Lara Trump is a former TV news producer and has been a fixture in her father-in-law’s political career.
“My very talented daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, has agreed to run as the RNC Co-Chair,” the former president said in a statement in February. “Lara is an extremely talented communicator and is dedicated to all that MAGA stands for.”
Eric Trump, meanwhile, has worked for his father’s businesses. But the younger Trump son was part of a yearslong civil investigation into the Trump Organization’s business dealings — and participated in a six-hour deposition in 2020 that saw him invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 500 times.
Donald Trump Jr., who’s now a podcaster, spoke passionately at the RNC this year in support of his father’s nomination. He also happens to be the cofounder of Winning Team Publishing, which produces books about his father.
Trump has also tapped his youngest son, Barron, for advice on how to draw in Gen Z voters.
In August, he said his 18-year-old son talked him into an interview with the high-profile streamer Adin Ross.
Cuban sounds off on the Trump family
This is not the first time the “Shark Tank” billionaire investor has criticized Trump for keeping things in the family.
“For all Trump supporters. A question. Which startups has Donald Trump ever invested in that didn’t involve a family member?”Cuban star wrote in an X post on September 8.
“You invest in businesses. Right? How many super wealthy business people do you know that have never decided to give even one entrepreneur a shot by investing in their business?” Cuban wrote in response to a post by X user Chart Westcott.
In the X post, he added that every other wealthy person he knew, except Trump, had tried to help others.
Cuban also recently criticized Trump for threatening to impose a 200% tariff on John Deere if it moves its manufacturing to Mexico.
“Good way to destroy a legendary American company and increase costs to American buyers,” Cuban wrote in an X post on Monday.
During an interview with YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen on September 17, Cuban also told the progressive commentator that Trump, to him, is “the antithesis” of someone with good character.
“I think they believe they can manipulate him. I think they understand that he’s so transactional and so devoid of core values that anything that they want they can manipulate him to get,” Cuban said of Silicon Valley backers of Trump.
Cuban has endorsed Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and staunchly backed her economic agenda, calling her “pro-business.”
And during an interview with Axios in March, he said that he would much rather prefer President Joe Biden or Harris to a “snake oil salesperson” like Trump.
Cuban and representatives of Trump didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from B-17, sent outside business hours.
